In the General Discussion forum, there are a lot of silly topics, but hopefully no one minds a serious one, as well.
I've noticed a lot of Christians have been claiming things in the Lord's name that I seriously doubt the good Lord had anything to do with.
All due to a little thing called 'free will'. The ability to think for ourselves and choose our own actions.
The best example I can think of is the Youth Group at my church. They went on a missionary trip to Nevada, and came back some few weeks later to tell us all about it in a speech.
They told of how SATAN kicked them out of a park for practising religion in public.
They also spoke of how GOD allowed them to find another church that would help them.
How GOD informed the park director that it was a city park, and they could do whatever they wanted there.
How SATAN still wouldn't let them.
And they ended this speech with, "We knew we were doing the right thing because we were being prosecuted."
Now, while my entire church gives them a standing ovation and a few women behind me are crying because it's apparently some beautiful religious moment, I'm muttering angrily to myself and staying firmly planted in my seat.
I hate to tell them this, but (believe it or not) God isn't responsible for every little good thing, bad thing, mishap, convenience, inconvenience, or event that happens to you in your life.
(my grandmother would kill me if she read that)
Heh...
This seems the exact oposite of free will, if you think about it.
You abandon every will to think for yourself, because GOD and SATAN control your lives competely.
How silly... And there were women crying in the back???
I mean, everyone is free to believe anything they want, but frankly when you have SATAN kicking you out of the park, and not the park warden who saw you lighting a fire (for example), or whatever else, then...well... you've got a problem...
anyways... I'm srue this thread will grow into a beautiful debate once again, as we love to do every once in a while. Silyl themes, are good, but once in a while a 20 page of serious debate about nothing really debatable is fun also :D
;D
Quote from: Mad-Hatter on Fri 28/07/2006 08:12:01
And they ended this speech with, "We knew we were doing the right thing because we were being prosecuted."
Lovely fallacy, that. It allows you to get away with anything because if people disagree with you, you must be right...
Quote
I hate to tell them this, but (believe it or not) God isn't responsible for every little good thing, bad thing, mishap, convenience, inconvenience, or event that happens to you in your life.
Very true. God gave people a brain for a reason.
Ayuh, I've noticed the priests tend to throw everything into the hands of God and/or Satan. Everything that happens good is because of God, everything that happens bad is because of Satan. Sort of, but I've found that's the general gist.
I guess that kinda "comes with the job", as it were, it IS part of the whole religion stuff (I'm an atheist, that's why I talk so lightly about it all), but why can't they try another approach? I listened to this sermon once, where the priest said interesting things about human nature, and it's ability to recover from grief, and be strong, and grow, and so on and so forth, and said it was all because of the Holy Spirit. Then I thought, "Way to go, you've completely devalued one of our most important and fascinating characteristics by saying it's not us that's doing it". But while that thought still seems true, it also seems quite cynical in retrospect, because wrapped around it was a message of warmth, of caring, of comfort, and so on, where "letting the holy spirit inside was to be a better person" - meaning, we wouldn't be better BECAUSE we'd let it in, we'd let it in BECAUSE we'd be better.
I liked that sermon, gave me pause to think. Lumping everything in God/Satan is a blatant excuse for anything that goes right/wrong, and puts the world in an awful black-and-white stance - and religions tend to do this, which I hate.
Anyway, I'll stop here, since I have a bit of a bone to pick with the way religion can be taken to extremes (and my definition of "extreme" is rather wide, Mad-Hatter's example fits into it because it seems the brain just short-circuited there) and this ain't the place to pick that bone.
Wow. I can't believe there are still people in the world who take religion seriously (in an "advanced" country". I have seen maybe 10 religious people in my entire life. And nine of those were priests
Well, it is understandable. Most people need something to believe in. I believe in evolution, me - in all levels. I believe that we learn through wrong actions, that we get better, and so on, and strive to evolve myself into the best person I can be.
Some people are more spiritual. People need their beliefs. I just wish they wouldn't lose track of reality. Those that do, naturally.
"They told of how SATAN kicked them out of a park for practising religion in public."
Are you sure they weren't listening to a grand theft auto game's radio station? And here I was thinking they were far fetched!
How can they so easily define whether something was done by GOD or SATAN anyway? What if say, GOD foresaw that if they stayed on the park one of them was going to slip and break his neck? So he made them stay away. But no, they assume it's SATAN's doing! And how about Euthansia? Mercy of GOD or killing by SATAN?
For the record I'm agnostic. I'm just theorizing or whatnot.
Yup, I too like to think that everything I do is by my own choice. Even when I say "I had no choice." it was a choice, but the alternative may have been very bad indeed.
"Some people are more spiritual."
I am actually I suppose. When my grandma died it was just too hard to accept that she'[s just some ashes now and that's it. It's comforting to think that her soul is in existence.
I'm more inclined to believe that the things which happen to me over the course of a day are the compound actions of other people, many of whom I will never meet, and not the direct intervention of any god.
I think that whole "act of god/satan" thing is pretty spurious. For example, did anyone in that group consider that the park director wanted to keep what he saw as "a loud group of religious nuts" out of his quiet little park? Maybe he didn't want to disturb the other patrons? Or maybe theres a forgotten rule somewhere saying that people can't preach anything inside the park.
The point is, that doesn't make the park director satan.
Over here, most of the priests I've met don't play the satan angle too heavily. With them, bad things are "tests" and good things are "rewards".
To me, this sort of thinking just seems like a way of relieving people from thought and responsibility.
There is no such thing as free will. We are biological mechanisms. Everything a mechanism does is the result of the influences and initial charges and directives it has. The 'self' is sitting in the passenger's seat, looking at his own cogs, looking outside, looking at his own cogs, looking outside. We influence ourselves in ways that are exactly compensated for. There is no etherial spirit outside and above ourselves dictating the actions of the body according to it's divine ethical choices, made before time.
Well here's my take, I've been through many different churches, found the Baptist religion, accepted Jesus into my heart, and now I don't really go to church.
I belive God made everything...
I believe God gave us free will...
I believe that God sometimes on very rare occasions intervenes (possibly not even Him Himself but one of his agents... Angels if you will.)
I also believe God put the world on autopilot. The proof is the fact that we have discovered some of His automated systems such as the water cycle, the O-2 cycle and the like.
If God intervened with anyone, its not with that person themself, but with the circumstances around that person, to MAKE anyone do anything invalidates free will. In other words, he won't stop you from drinking and driving, but he may be sure it rains so your car slides down the embankment instead of catching on the dry ground and flipping. Kind of a bad example, but I hope I made my point about that.
BTW, while I am still a believer in God and even Jesus, I don't go to church anymore due to mostly hypocracy. Such as told that an earring on a male, and even tattoos are ungodly as you are desicrating the temple of the Lord... This particular person happened to be a heavy smoker... Since I left the church and went with a whole self made approach to my beliefs, I've found more comfort, and felt more at peace than anytime at church.
Another reason is how SURE people were about something they couldn't prove, to me I know what I feel and I know what I believe, but until I die I won't know for SURE.
Another thing I don't get it when something happens they claim it is all the divine inevitable plan of God. Yet they fear the "anti-christ". Surely if God controls absolutely everything in the world, then they have no reason to fear the "anti-christ" as whatever happens is all part of Gods plan and we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride?
The idea of Hell and Satan having influence over anything removes the idea of omnipotency that so many Christians laud. If there is a divine plan, free will is bunk.
Peasants can't think for themselves so the Church of old told them. Religion seems a very conveinient way of keeping the masses seduced.
I think people today would gain a better spiritual insight if they went to church less and played Grim Fandango more.
EDIT: Why do people always say that they have "accepted" Jesus? Makes them sound as if Big-J is a huge inconvenience on them or something but they're going along with it anyway.
It is inevitable that any given internet forum with a large number of active members at some point will have a debate about free will... therefore, we do not have free will ;)
Quote from: SSH on Fri 28/07/2006 13:05:26
It is inevitable that any given internet forum with a large number of active members at some point will have a debate about free will... therefore, we do not have free will ;)
Nuts.
Anyone read Good Omens?
I assure you that none of you have any free will.
Free will doesn't exist, but I'm too tired to explain it right now ... (Helm is on the right track, but he didn't explain it fully ...)
I suggest playing my game Anna (http://xiigames.com/anna) for the answer to all your questions.
Please, do explain it fully.
I have Free Willy on DVD, which is nearly the same...
You have no sense of humor.
That was established a long time ago on #ags
Quote from: Helm on Fri 28/07/2006 14:58:36
You have no sense of humor.
That's wrong! He has a sense of humour, it's just rubbish.. (kidding)
Gods are the creation of people's imagination. Some dutch docter said it, and it makes sense to me. No other animal that I know of worships gods, and create connections between imagination and reality (http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/32362/Athiest_s_Nightmare.html) (mitteneers will know he peels wrong side).
So whats so different about humans and animals. Human can imagine a problem and think up several solutions in their head without trying it out first, or even before that problem occurs. For me this proves that there is free will since we choose a solution that we like most, and not choose the first one that pops up.
I guess Helm would say that this means that there is NO free will since "like" is an subconscious emotion created by the cogs in the brain.
Good Omens was meh. It fell back on clechés over and over.
Helm's argument is based on the assumption that the world is deterministic and that determinism is incompatible with free will. I'd like to see him justify these assumptions, especially in the face of quantum indeterminacy and chaos theory, not to mention the whole basic assumption that there is no metaphysical influence on the material world.
God's going to condemn me if I'm wrong, BUT.........
'Miracles'. I don't believe in those either.
I know this goes against what a lot of people (including myself) were taught, and I mean no offense to anyone, but I don't believe that there is any Divine Intervention.
If God is omnipotent, and knows and sees everything, then why would He wait until the last second to stop something bad from happening? Is He a procrastinator?
Perhaps He may prepare certain things (all working within His set of rules, with the 'Faith, not proof' philosophy) for that situation, but I don't think He actually intervenes.
@SSH
To attribute freewill to the quantum dice roll is even more depressing than to support the notion of a strict determinist world for most people. Even in this configuration that you seem to suggest trumps determinism, through the various 'random' universes and appropriate rule-sets governing them, the one we're in, operates on the level on which we experience it, under said set of it's own rules. Whether this set of rules initially is dependent on dice-rolls, or in fact whether the reliability of these rules at any future notice is uncertain, doesn't interest me as much as the certainty that right now, up to here, it has been and continues to be dependent. Do you understand? Chaos Theory doesn't mean Chaos period. A completely unfathomable (to humans) ruleset doesn't make the end result of the process any less deterministic.
Metaphysical/Material dualism is a concept I am not inclined to take seriously. The machines are the machines and everything interfaces with everything else in ever-complex connections that are beyond us fully. The mystical bent to these processes is not mandatory to agree that they [the processes] exist. Even if after death, some sort of spectral form, remnants of memories from the human electric system for example, lingers for a time, this isn't more metaphysical than as much as the one interpreting chooses it to be.
Gods (/spirits/whatever) are a demand. They are not necessary.
Finally, because you're being silly: my assumptions are inherently justified as such; they are not testable hypotheses and need no scientific backing to operate as they were intended: as grounds for conversation. Please carry on with the bad humor.
Quote from: Radiant on Fri 28/07/2006 13:43:11
Anyone read Good Omens?
I have, but it was a long time ago and I can't remember it well thus cannot see what you're getting at. Care to elaborate?
I seem to agree with Alynn here. Though I still go to church, there is alot of hypocrisy.
Anyway, I believe we have free will. God and Satan can be influences, I guess, but the way Mad-Hatter described the group, they are boiling life down to yes or no, bad or good, and that is just silly.
I believe God has a plan for us.. In that we are born and we die. All that stuff in-between is up to us and the actions of people around us... Except for still-borns and stuff. I still don't quite understand that.
Helm, how do you tell the difference between an unfathomable ruleset and one where there are no rules? You're assuming that everything that can happen has a rule. That is true metaphysics: that there exists things that are not controlled by some set of rules, but by a will, be it human, divine or something else.
God versus Satan is a no brainer. If Satan is the product of God, as an angel kicked out of heaven, then as such all that Satan creates is also of God, and therefore no real threat to God's domain.
Makes no difference to me. I follow the Church of the Straight Banana, found in a bunch of regular curved bananas, and obviously an outside source of divinity.
The holy banana knows all.
First of all, try to coherently explain what you're trying to say to me, as
Quotebetween an unfathomable ruleset and one where there are no rules
This seems to differentiate between a ruleset that is unfath... let's say near-impossible to comprehent by human intellect, and a ruleset, which contains... no rules. Surely you don't mean that, do you? I'll take that as if you ment how do I differentiate between a near impossibly complicated ruleset, and the complete absense of a ruleset, to which I reply: The presence of a ruleset is a hypothesis based on epyrical founding. On the very barest of levels: not by saying why things happen, but by observing that they indeed do. The premise of
causality is of course a theory, but a very safe and axiomatic one. Our understanding of the ruleset might be flawed, and we might endlessly try to better it, and it can be argued it will never completely cover the workings of what the ruleset governs (this is known as the process of scientific progress) but there is little epistemological discrepency in saying there is one. It is a direct byproduct of "things happen". The other option, is complete and total solipsism, and that's no fun, is it?
QuoteYou're assuming that everything that can happen has a rule. That is true metaphysics: that there exists things that are not controlled by some set of rules, but by a will, be it human, divine or something else.
Please seperate what I said, and what you're saying from the above quote as it is not clear to me. You did not clearly state how there exists something not controlled by rules, but by will. I didn't say that. You didn't say that. Why is it being said?
OK, I can see I was unclear.
Let's start from scratch...
Obviously there are some physical phenomena for which there are rules. There are some physical phenomena for which there are rules that mankind has not yet discovered. Beyond that there may be physical phenomena for which we will never begin to understand the rules for. And one step beyond that, there may be physical phenomena for which there are no rules, or at least none other than something like "they are not predictable or mesaurable, etc." The boundary between these areas is of course hazy, but I'm suggesting that our universe, or multiverse, or whatever it is may be affected by this.
So who can say that the last area does not exist, when we have no real undertsanding of the areas between t and where we are now?
Quote from: veryweirdguy on Fri 28/07/2006 17:56:07
Quote from: Radiant on Fri 28/07/2006 13:43:11
Anyone read Good Omens?
I have, but it was a long time ago and I can't remember it well thus cannot see what you're getting at. Care to elaborate?
Despite being a humoristic and tongue-in-cheek book, it has some wise words about free will and the idea that the whole point of Creation must be that humans can make their choice between good and evil.
Quote from: LimpingFish on Fri 28/07/2006 19:21:48
The holy banana knows all.
If you're going to worship food... FSM rules!
...In Bill Watterson's words (paraphrased from memory)...
Calvin: I've decided to believe in predestination. Everything we do is foreordained, and therefore nothing I do wrong is really my fault.
(Hobbes trips Calvin, who falls in the mud)
Hobbes: Too bad you were fated to do that.
Calvin: THAT WASN'T FATE!!!
I mean no disrespect to the topic in using humor to discuss it. Rather, this kind of humor holds a mirror to reality, and potentially holds a mirror to the poor souls that Just Don't Get It. Even if, when the blind lead the blind, they will find it hard to spot a mirror. Ramen.
@SSH: Of course, there are objects or processes in the universe that follow rules which we will never understand. But suggesting that there are things that don't follow any rules, whose activities over time are not governed by some sort of laws seems counter intuitive to me. However, there is no way to disprove that such things exist.
But, for us to have free will, and to actually have the ability to act independently of the chemical and electrical processes (which are strictly governed by rules) in our brains and bodies,lI contend that we would have to have some sort of process in our bodies that was not governed by laws.
We've studied the human body and the brain quite thoroughly and of course there's a lot of things we don't understand. But I don't think we've found anything about which it would be appropriate to assume that it doesn't follow any rules.
I believe that if everything in our bodies follow a strict set of rules, then our body is reacting to stimuli in a calculated and mechanical manner... without free will.
In other words, I'm with Helm on this one.
As I see it there are three possible answers to this question; yes, no and both.
Let's start with Both:
In this case the universe has an infinite number of parallel universes where every possible permutation of every option causes another universe to be born.
In other words: Anything can happen in all the universes together, but not in just one of them.
How to prove this model:
Maybe one would be able to detect one or more of the other universes, but it's a 50/50 chance that you live in one of the universes where the attempt to do so would result in failure.
Then there's Yes:
The mind can affect matter, and humans have control over their own actions. Maybe it happens within the known world, or maybe thought is a separate dimension yet undiscovered. Who knows, right?
How to prove this model:
If the rules guiding the motion of the particles is correct unless a mind interferes with them you can prove free will with using math to calculate the future and when the future is present point out that it is different than predicted. The calculation of the future would of course, since everything influences everything else, require a computer built out of the entire universe and thusly would have no point. One could even say that the universe right now IS a computer calculating it's own future. MOAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!
Lastly; No
Let's face it. This is by far the most boring option. *yawn* Proving it's validity causes you to run into a lot of the same problems as when attempting to prove Yes. (The all encompassing computer trying to predict the future, etc) *yawn*
Closing thoughts
This is a question that can only be answered when you know the true nature of the universe. But then again, how can you know you know? Even if what you know explains everything you observe, how can you know that's not just the way you percieve it? In other words: If you sit in a room with no door or windows, does that mean that there is no room next to it?
Maybe one should rather ask if the universe is made for us to comprehend?
This is a great topic because I can be lary in it!
Let religious people be religious, let them beleive and follow what they want. They aint bad people. I know a lot and I still respect them, despite what they beleive. Afterall, its more normal than what I beleive.
AND **** MY F**KING **** COS THIS IS FREE F**KING WILL!!!!!
Sorry I couldn't produce an academic answer.
THATS FREE WILL!!
ps stop looking at gods and focus on godesses! ffs!
Dr. Scary, the "problem" you brought up about the universe being a computer computing its own future is, in a way, an argument against free will. So... yeah...
The inconsistencies of religion starts whenever someone fail to comprehend the symbolic values of said mythos and read it letter by letter as truths. Religion is our pre-Freudian psychology - ways to understand ourselfs and eachother. It helps us through individual crisis and lets us fathom the ways of our mind. As said example of grief, where our mind struggles and beats said crisis with help from "the holy ghost". Now, the holy spectre is not an actual entity but rather a part of our own (commune?) psyche. All scriptures works as symbolic tales that speaks about plain philosophy - how to live our daily lives as swell as possible. It is not what you believe in, it is that you believe that matters.
Sadly, I am an agnostic and believe in nothing.
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Sat 29/07/2006 03:10:34
Dr. Scary, the "problem" you brought up about the universe being a computer computing its own future is, in a way, an argument against free will. So... yeah...
You are correct, it is. It was in no way connected to the argument FOR free will, it was just a funny thought I decided to share with people in context.
On a side note: It is a nonsensical discussion. One can't HOPE to find an answer to the question of free will, so this entire thread is just a practice ground for the noble arts of polemics and semantics. But what else is new...
If you're looking for startling new discoveries in an internet discussion about free will, well...
Quote
Sadly, I am an agnostic and believe in nothing.
I don't see why this is sad. And in general it's exactly what I believe. Not necessarily in nothing, but that the something is unknown, so why care?
As far as free will is concerned, this is where an agnostic view comes and helps again. Why care? All we know is that we live and percieve to make our own decisions.
If we have free will, and think we have free will then this doesn't have any conflict with how our preceptions are.
If we have free will, and don't think we have free will, then we're free to think that our decisions are insubstantial, and already made up.
If we don't have free will, but think we have free will, then it still doesn't have a conflict with how we live our lives, because it's already been decided for us long ago to think that we have free will.
If we don't have free will, and don't think we have free will, then we probably have a 9-5 job.
If I had to argue anything, I would say this is really a question of relativity. If we take the whole universe and believe everything is set in motion, and uncapable of changing from its destined path, this doesn't really affect our lives. We are just one big equation. However, let's consider us the universe now. It's what we know. We react to events around us, unknowingly partaking in destiny, while at the same time our lives are affected by certain events or certain people. Because our scope isn't universal, but local, our perception of the universe and how we react to things seems to give us the notion that there is free will. Because we live on what we percieve, on our level, I would argue we have free will. Not free will enough to break out of what we're destined to do, but free will enough to think we do.
This is based on the assumption that the universe is based on a set of rules that can not change, and are not random. Let's assume that there are some things that don't apply to rules. This initially sounds more exciting, but I don't like to delve into this path, because you get into this conundrum. If the world is random, and nothing is set in motion, then your decisions are also random. Which means, yes, you have free will, but to what end? It's not you making decisions, it's the randomness of the universe. However, this option also is a question of relativity. If you don't know the universe is random, then you'll think you made decisions based on your will.
So in the end, it your perceptions that matter. I'd say the term free will has a scope. It means more to us than the universe.
-MillsJROSS
Quote from: MillsJROSS on Sat 29/07/2006 04:46:07
I don't see why this is sad. And in general it's exactly what I believe. Not necessarily in nothing, but that the something is unknown, so why care?
Atheists BELIEVE that there is no God, and thus has a conviction not unlike religious convictions. The antithesis of theism has neither proof nor evidence of the inexistance of God. Agnosticism however is a pure antireligious form; an antistatement of convictions. We all need something to believe in, and I miss having a reason to live.
I don't necessarily agree. Agnostics isn't the antitheses of theism. It's a simple matter of saying that we are without knowledge, and to argue over the existence of gods/dietys/what-have-you serves no purpose. Agnostics are allowed to overlap with atheism and theism. An agnostic might say, "There is no proof of existence of god, and I don't personally believe in one" or "There is no proof of the existence of god, but I still believe there might be"
Good ol' wikipedia affirms this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic
As far as having a reason to live...I don't buy into the fact that because you believe there is no way to prove the existence of god one way or the other, than your life has no meaning or reason. I'd also argue that believing in a god or not believing in a god, necessarily gives anyone a reason to live either. It's up to the individual to provide their own reasons for living. Mine is to try and make computer games, and if that doesn't work, have a few laughs, anyway. I believe in my existence, therefor I am. And I don't care if I'm created by an architect or by accident.
I am not saying that it's not possible for you not to have a reason to live, but it's not because of your being agnostic as it applies to a god. It's being agnostic as it applies to your beliefs in your existence.
-MillsJROSS
Quote from: MillsJROSS on Sun 30/07/2006 03:37:33
An agnostic might say, "There is no proof of existence of god, and I don't personally believe in one" or "There is no proof of the existence of god, but I still believe there might be"
-MillsJROSS
Precisely.
An agnostic isn't necessarily someone who refuses to believe in God, but rather someone who refuses to question His existence, because they acknowledge the fact it can't be proven that He does exist, nor that He doesn't.
As MillsJROSS put it, an agnostic can believe in God if they want, or they can not believe in God if they want. But it doesn't mean that they HAVE to, by definition, believe one way or another.
last two posts by mills are great.
2ma2: even existentialists with strong epistemological issues with the concept of knowledge, that claim to know nothing, still have reasons to remain alive, and they seem to have their fun too. Being alive is good enough incentive for staying alive, it seems.
I don't believe in God or Satan.
They're just fictional charaters.
We're all on our own.
And miracles... well, the church has a convenient way to sort out miralces:
"Miracles only happens to those, who can help themselves".
So, basically it means: People, who can help themselves, doesn't need mircales - those, who can't help themselves doesn't deserve miracles!
And about the free will: I doubt there is something like that, either.
I think, our brains just gets impulses from our environment wich run down our synapses, get analyzed and then we commit an apropiate reaction.
Quote from: Mr Flibble on Fri 28/07/2006 12:40:57
I think people today would gain a better spiritual insight if they went to church less and played Grim Fandango more.[/qoute]
Amen! ;)
Mills: You misunderstood me. I meant that Atheism is the antithesis of Theism, and Agnosticismis is avoiding the question so to speak. But to the rest; I thought the core issue of agnosticism was the refusal to believe in neither God(s) nor Atheism, but Wikipedia proves me wrong - only the knowledge is unattainable, the beliefs are not.
"and are also used to describe those who are unconvinced or noncommittal about the existence of deities as well as other matters of religion." - my view. Quoted from WP.
Helm: Being alive is a poor incentive to stay alive since it ceases when your life is over. It is however an argument against suicide.
Quote from: Helm on Sun 30/07/2006 06:26:55
2ma2: even existentialists with strong epistemological issues with the concept of knowledge...
AGGHHH!!!!! Too many big words!!!!
Quote from: Thomas Voà Ÿ on Sun 30/07/2006 14:46:52
And miracles... well, the church has a convenient way to sort out miralces:
"Miracles only happens to those, who can help themselves".
So, basically it means: People, who can help themselves, doesn't need mircales - those, who can't help themselves doesn't deserve miracles!
Not many big words enough!!!!
QuoteHelm: Being alive is a poor incentive to stay alive since it ceases when your life is over. It is however an argument against suicide.
Without wanting to derail this gem of a thread, what I ment was a pretty low-brow concept: we're instinctually hardwired to desire to remain alive. There is no need for arguments on why staying alive is a good idea, be you a man with convictions or not, we just really really want to.
So I'm not buying the 'I am an agnostic and therefore I don't have God to focus on and remain alive'. There's been people that believe in absolutely nothing, have done the most atrocious things you can imagine, and they sleep like babies and think life's the greatest thing ever.
But if the desire to live is wired, the wiring can be malfunctioning, and not even finding Jesus will help you then. Kinda sucks.. :=
Hire a good electrician.
-MillsJROSS
Quote from: Mad-Hatter on Fri 28/07/2006 08:12:01
In the General Discussion forum, there are a lot of silly topics, but hopefully no one minds a serious one, as well.
I've noticed a lot of Christians have been claiming things in the Lord's name that I seriously doubt the good Lord had anything to do with.
All due to a little thing called 'free will'. The ability to think for ourselves and choose our own actions.
The best example I can think of is the Youth Group at my church. They went on a missionary trip to Nevada, and came back some few weeks later to tell us all about it in a speech.
They told of how SATAN kicked them out of a park for practising religion in public.
They also spoke of how GOD allowed them to find another church that would help them.
How GOD informed the park director that it was a city park, and they could do whatever they wanted there.
How SATAN still wouldn't let them.
And they ended this speech with, "We knew we were doing the right thing because we were being prosecuted."
Now, while my entire church gives them a standing ovation and a few women behind me are crying because it's apparently some beautiful religious moment, I'm muttering angrily to myself and staying firmly planted in my seat.
I hate to tell them this, but (believe it or not) God isn't responsible for every little good thing, bad thing, mishap, convenience, inconvenience, or event that happens to you in your life.
(my grandmother would kill me if she read that)
IMO, I think that God has control over the world, but He doesn't control what people do- and neither does Satan. After all, God DID give people free will. I think either you're exaggerating about your church, or else the people are extremists. The people at my church wouldn't blame Satan for kicking them out of the park and all that stuff.
personally i'd just take it as a point from god to do something enjoyable.
Quote
I think either you're exaggerating about your church, or else the people are extremists. The people at my church wouldn't blame Satan for kicking them out of the park and all that stuff.
Though I AM prone to exaggeration, I assure you I'm not exaggerating this time. They ACTUALLY said that.
Whether they were attempting to use it in a metaphorical sense, or if they actually believed it, I don't know. Regardless, they DID say it.
What denomination is your church?
QuoteWhat denomination is your church?
First Baptist.
I bet they were using it as a metaphor where satan represented the people that kicked them out and God represented the youth group themselves. Although I don't know of anywhere where they'd use metaphors that are THAT radical.
Free will is commonly thought of as a sin with fundies - It's what got satan kicked out.
Perhaps those guys were reading too much Frank Peretti
I think my head is going to explode if I try and understand what some of you are saying without corresponding source matter, so I'm just going to say this.
As a catholic, I go to church every sunday and holyday.
As a teenager, I have alot of time to think about life.
As I like to think I have a pretty far above average IQ, I feel that thinking about these matters is good for your grey matter, so to speak. So.
I believe that there is a God. This God created the universe by sparking the big bang. There is a Satan, as Newton's third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For yin, there is yang and so forth. Free will flings us along this path as our consiousnesses are bound to this universe, but our conciousnesses are not of this universe. So we could be the mini programs inside the big program of the all encompassing computer so to speak. These external influences of Yin and Yang (I'm not using God and Satan here because of ease of discussion) affect our lives by giving us choices to follow. Maybe we make our own choices, following the middle path.
The point of my argument is this. These external influences are of other places. Same as our conciousnesses. We leave this universe and end up somewhere else after our deaths. And about free will? I would not be writing this now If I had none. I would be in a cave along with the rest of you going "Ug" and bashing each other with clubs.
- Huw
But did cavemen have influences?
Did Satan influence a certain caveman to club his neighbour and steal his woman?
I love how Creation and Evolution have been combined to create Creavolution! It's so spiritually refreshing. :D
No, Satan did not appear until man had succeding in forming an agricultural society. Something about the proper housing.
Nobody in this thread has defined free will in a clear, intuitive, non-circular way. This is okay, I guess, because nobody in the world has, either, but it does undercut the discussion a bit.
First of all, free will is being confused with nondeterminism in some of the posts. Would it be possible for a person to have free will, and yet to be absolutely predictable? Some religious viewpoints insist that God knows everything that is to come, but simultaneously insist that people have free will. Is this coherent?
Suppose human psychology follows this set of rules:
1. Every person has a unique personality that is shaped in a totally rule-based, mechanical way by the environment. This causes them to have certain preferences. These may not be obviously self-serving - they could prefer ethical actions, for example.
2. Whenever they make a choice, they look at the alternatives and pick the one that best fits their preferences. When the decision is extremely close, much subtler aspects of their nature cause them to make an apparently random choice. This is still ultimately deterministic.
In this case, people ARE making decisions based on internal preferences. They're making their own choices - it's not as if God is coming down and forcing them to act against their preferences. Does that fact that this is totally predictable mean that it isn't free will? If so, what does free will MEAN?
Would people have free will if tough decisions were decided randomly? What if the randomness of tiny, spontaneous nerve firings produced enough noise to make these decisions truly unpredictable? That's not free will - that's a coin flip!
It really just depends on what you're applying free will to. Once again wiki saves the day...
QuoteThe principle of free will has religious, ethical, psychological and scientific implications. For example, in the religious realm, free will may imply that an omnipotent divinity does not assert its power over individual will and choices. In ethics, free will may imply that individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. In psychology, it implies that the mind controls some of the actions of the body. In the scientific realm, free will may imply that the actions of the body, including the brain, are not wholly determined by physical causality.
So, depending on which area you're applying the term "free will" to, then non determinism may very well play a part. So I don't see anyone confused...we're just focusing on other areas.
Are we slaves to the rules that are set in this universe, or is our being present in some other universe deciding events. If the later is true, than it's possible, as far as this universe is concerned, that our decisions aren't based on the rules of this universe. Of course, once again, this is an example of scope. Regardless of the fact that our decisions might be able to guide us in different direction in this universe, we can only assume that the being in the other universe have some rules that must be followed. So while in this universe we show free will, in the other universe we are bound to deterministic rules and boundaries, and thus free will is once again yanked away from us. Of course, this is probably useless ramblings.
-MillsJROSS
Quote from: LimpingFish on Tue 01/08/2006 22:11:25
Did Satan influence a certain caveman to club his neighbour and steal his woman?
Satan is a nickname, it's the hebrew word for "enemy." His name as an angel was lucifer. He is very misunderstood as far as i am concerned. He didnt challenge god's throne like people say he did. He thought that humans didnt need to follow god's law to live in peace, to govern themselves - being of socialist ideal, i can quite sympathise with him... And i suppose in a way it is challenging god, but it isnt so that he can take over, which is what was commonly thought.
Quote from: Wellington on Wed 02/08/2006 23:06:38
Nobody in this thread has defined free will in a clear, intuitive, non-circular way. This is okay, I guess, because nobody in the world has, either, but it does undercut the discussion a bit.
God is equally undefinable, or Infinity, or Nothingness or other such terms. Yet they are widely used and abused and create invented problems for people to get confused with. Yes, there's a semanic issue there, but then again, the whole of language, no matter how robust an argument, how positivist, how whatever, will always be plagued by the issues that are emergent in using language to communicate.
QuoteIn this case, people ARE making decisions based on internal preferences. They're making their own choices - it's not as if God is coming down and forcing them to act against their preferences. Does that fact that this is totally predictable mean that it isn't free will?
People ARE making decisions. If by people you mean the natural mechanisms that we are. There's data, and there's processing, and there's result. Infinitely many decisions every half-second. If you mean some other mystical essence that lives within the body and commands it's actions, I'd have to say... no, no such thing probably exists and makes decisions. And these decisions that the machanisms are making, wether they're clockwork-determinism based, or chaotic quantum random based do not really have anything to do with free will that OVERRIDES THIS SYSTEM.
Quotewhat does free will MEAN?
Free Will means: "I am scared of the world, please let me believe it is under control'.